Friday 1 June
Tracey Breaks the News
BBC One, 9.30pm
After losing her to the USA for 30 years, Tracey Ullman’s return to our shores two years ago has reminded us of her unparalleled talents as an impressionist. She captures the physicality of her famous subjects – Angela Merkel and Judi Dench are standouts – as well as their voices, and hats off to Ullman’s prosthetics teams for her remarkable transformations. After an acting stint in last year’s Howards End, Ullman returns to her comfort zone tonight with a second series of the topical sketch comedy show in which she skewers politicians, mostly – although we’ll also be treated to more of Ben Miller’s scene-stealing Rupert Murdoch, with Ullman as Jerry Hall. Although no preview tape was available due to last-minute filming, Ullman was pictured as Michael Gove in promotional material and has also promised impressions of Jeremy Corbyn and Jacob Rees-Mogg. The previous series attracted criticism for weak writing, and some skits do lack bite, but slack should be cut – it’s a notoriously difficult format to pull off. Ullman’s gift for mimicry means she hits the mark often enough for the show to be a welcome bit of light satire to wind up the week. VP
Extreme Wales with Richard Parks
BBC Two, 7.30pm
Tonight’s final episode of Richard Parks’s adventure programme combines extreme sports with lush panoramas of the Welsh landscape. Daredevil Parks takes to the skies on a paramotor – nothing more than a parachute connected to a fan-like motor – to propel him the length of the country. VP
The Bridge
BBC Two, 9.00pm
Fugitive immigrant Taariq Shirazi (Alexander Behrang Keshtkar) makes a desperate bid to flee as the Scandi-noir crime series continues. When Saga (Sofia Helin) and Henrik (Thure Lindhardt) track him down, however, Saga’s inability to tell a lie has serious consequences. VP
Friday Night Dinner
Channel 4, 10.00pm
This sitcom’s family squabbles are more uncomfortably familiar than laugh-out-loud funny in tonight’s penultimate visit to the Goodmans’ home. Writer Robert Popper capitalises on Simon Bird’s musical skills by having his character, Adam, reluctantly play the violin to cheer up Grandma. VP
The Graham Norton Show
BBC One, 10.35pm; NI, 11.05pm;
Ethan Hawke, Toni Collette, Jo Brand and Aidan Turner offer their funniest anecdotes tonight. Plus, Liam Payne continues his post-One Direction solo career with a performance his new single, Familiar. VP
The Everly Brothers: Harmonies from Heaven
BBC Four, 9.00pm
Art Garfunkel, Keith Richards and Graham Nash are among the luminaries paying tribute to Don and Phil Everly in this 2016 documentary, all of them claiming the brothers as an influence. Surviving sibling Don Everly returns to Iowa to recount the brothers’ first appearances, their pivotal move to Nashville and stardom in the late Fifties.
Africa: A Journey into Music
BBC Four, 10.00pm
So much of the music we listen to has its roots in African music. In this new three-part documentary series, London DJ Rita Ray sets off to explore the continent’s influence. Kicking off her journey in Nigeria, Ray stumbles across impromptu drumming ceremonies in the streets as she explores the importance of rhythm in the country’s music and meets its major players. Future episodes take her to Mali and South Africa. VP
Crocodile Dundee (1986) ★★★★☆
Film4, 7.10pm
Mick “Crocodile” Dundee (Paul Hogan), a bushman from northern Australia, is a dab hand at surviving in the Outback. But when he is invited to New York City by Sue Charlton (Linda Kozlowski), a high-class reporter, in this Oscar-nominated comedy drama, he finds life far tougher in the urban jungle. He’s a survivor though: muggers who accost Dundee discover that he has a bigger knife than they do.
American Made (2017) ★★★☆☆
Sky Cinema Premiere, 8.00pm
Doug Liman directs Tom Cruise in this lively, madcap real-life tale of pilot, drug smuggler and CIA gun-runner Barry Seal, whose supersonic, if lawless, career path began, according to this script, when he was a bored TWA pilot in 1978 and was approached out of the blue by a CIA handler (Domhnall Gleeson, all greasy persuasion) to conduct reconnaissance flights across the Caribbean.
GoodFellas (1990) ★★★★★
ITV4, 10.00pm
Martin Scorsese’s Mafia masterpiece, adapted from a non-fiction book, has all the qualities of great cinema: it’s thrilling, it’s provocative, it’s stylish, and it’s got a young Robert De Niro in it. Ray Liotta plays the youngster who longs to be a gangster; De Niro and Joe Pesci are in the Mob. Pesci’s mother, meanwhile, reportedly asked him if he had to swear quite so much – the f-word is used 300 times.
Television previewers
Toby Dantzic, Sarah Hughes, Gerard O'Donovan, Vicki Power and Gabriel Tate